Friday, 3 June 2011

Apologies for changing the posting order this week but with the amount of people requesting this review it made sense to fast track it to the front of line. Behold Cadbury's latest new offering - the Cadbury Flake Allure bar. For the first time in a long while the Flake brand has been given a bit of attention - it feels like forever and a day since they last put some investment behind this part of their portfolio. Since the middle of May our taste buds have salivating at the promise of 'The much loved delicate and crumbly Flake chocolate, enrobed in smooth truffle and coated in Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate' - trade article HERE. The addition of the Dairy Milk to the usual Cadbury secondary recipe chocolate that we are all used to with the original Flake sounded like a step forward for the brand - this week I got a chance to judge for myself.

The new Cadbury Flake Allure weighs 31.5g, a touch under the standard Flake bar which comes in at 32.0g. When I saw the initial press release I was impressed by the style of the wrapper and I was even more so when I had the bar in hand. Unlike the rest of the Cadbury Flake range this new Allure bar came presented in a swish looking matted foil wrapper (the same used on the Cadbury Dairy Milk range!!). This combined with the less feminine brown design pattern work made the bar feel stylish and modern - a tick in the box for Cadbury there! Out it's wrapper, the bar emanated the usual glorious Cadbury milk chocolate smells, though I couldn't help but notice it's slimness compared to the standard Cadbury Flake.

Studying the bar closer and in greater detail a few potential issues immediately became apparent. The first glaring issue was that this Cadbury Flake Allure was just as messy to eat as any other Flake product. Despite the supposed 'coating', I created a right old mess, crumbs of chocolate everywhere :D The next most apparent thing was that the descriptor stated above and on the wrapper appeared to be quite misleading. The promised dual layered combination of 'truffle and Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate' appeared to be just a single half coating of milk chocolate on the underside of the bar. This wasn't a massive issue by any means but I couldn't help feel somewhat mislead by what was described to me previously. Putting this all to one side I ate the damn thing and felt somewhat better about it all :D The distinct sweet tasting, creamy Cadbury milk chocolate flavours were all offered in abundance, and the textural interplay created the by the smooth outer coating and crumbly centre portion provided a compelling mouth feel. The entire bar wasn't exactly the most fulfilling thing I have ever eaten but it performed its role as a mid-afternoon snack to a sufficient level.

Overall this is a tough one to call! Half of me wants to appreciate the great tasting chocolate and nice looking snazzy wrapper etc, however the other half of me is wanting to let loose on one big rant about how we are being cheated by Cadbury with this supposed 'new' offering. Essentially you can look at this all from two different perspectives. On one hand we have a tasty, textured milk chocolate bar that comes in an attractive new wrapper. Looking at it from the other side it could be viewed that this new Cadbury Flake Allure bar is simply just the Cadbury Flake Dipped, with half the chocolate coating, in a smaller size (39.0g vs 31.5g) and being sold at the same or higher price (RRP for the Cadbury Allure is £0.60). I don't wan't to be a cynical so-&-so but I find it extremely hard to gloss over the facts I've just pointed out. From the Cadbury perspective I understand that margins are being constricted with the cost of cocoa rising etc, however I still think is no excuse for 'window dressing' the removal of the Cadbury Flake Dipped with the replacement of this cheaper to produce alternative. The ChocolateMission score may still be relatively high, but that is a measurement solely of it's attributes and not of it's morals.